Before you can watch and record TV you need to scan for channels in TV-Server Configuration. For the quick option see TV Quick Setup. For all the details, see Configuration > TV-Server.

To get the most out of TV you also need to have Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data. If you use a DVB card and can get EPG data from your broadcast signal, then life is easy. If not, don't despair, MediaPortal provides other ways to easily get your EPG data. See TV Guide > Getting EPG Data.

When you select TV from the Home or Basic Home window, you will see the TV Home screen. You can choose to automatically turn on TV and even display it full screen when entering the TV Home screen. See Configuration > TV

Selecting Channels and Programs

There are several easy ways to change channels and select a program to watch.

1. TV Guide - select a program current airing and press Enter/OK to view it.
2. [ Mini Guide|Mini Guide] - from TV Home, press the Channel button, or press Enter/OK while watching TV Fullscreen.
3. Zap channels - using the channel up/down buttons to cycle through channels and display information about what is currently airing or showing next.

Timeshifting

MediaPortal supports timeshifting, which means your Live TV stream is saved to a buffer so you can pause, rewind and fast forward live TV like a video or recorded file.

Whenever you pause, rewind or fast forward using the timeshift buffer, a timeline will display in fullscreen TV.

• White Arrows: Your current position in the time line.
• Red: The part of the show that is not covered by timeshift (the timeshift buffer starts to fill from the moment you switch to that channel).
• Green: The part of the show that is covered by timeshift (meaning you could rewind until the spot where red and green meet).
• Orange: The part of the show ahead from your current position that is covered by time shift (meaning you can fast forward until the end of the orange bar which is the live position of the current TV program. E.g. when you hit pause and resume afterwards).
• 2x: The speed of the rewind.

The timeshift buffer will be kept even when changing channel. For example if you watch Channel A for 10 minutes then Channel B for 10 minutes and then rewind 15 minutes, you'll see the "recorded" timeshift from Channel A while still filling the timeshift buffer with Channel B.

The same time line displays as part of the On Screen Display (OSD).

When stopping timeshifting, a notification is displayed warning that the entire buffer will be removed. To disable this warning, see Settings (in MP) > TV Settings or MediaPortal Configuration > TV > TV Client.

On Screen Display (OSD)

While you are watching live TV in full screen, you can press Y or the Info/More remote button for the On Screen Display - OSD which not only displays details about the current program, but also provides controls.

Fullscreen TV Menu

There are many additonal options which allow you to control almost all aspects of viewing and even recording TV directly form the Fullscreen TV action menu. 

To access the Fullscreen TV action menu press F9 or the Info/More remote button twice (once for the OSD to show and then again for the Fullscreen TV context menu). For details on using all the options, see Actions menu.